{"id":41250,"date":"2017-12-13T18:19:16","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T23:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=41250"},"modified":"2017-12-13T18:19:16","modified_gmt":"2017-12-13T23:19:16","slug":"doing-batman-right-7-the-way-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=41250","title":{"rendered":"Doing Batman Right 7: The Way Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Based on my googling, it appears that Toby Emmerich<\/a> is the closest thing the DC Cinematic Universe has to someone in charge. I assume he’s been hitting F5 on this page all day, eager for my expert advice. If not, one of you should hit up his home phone or something.<\/p>\n

My advice on how best the manage DC’s menagerie of superheroes is handicapped by my relative absence of interest in comic book characters who aren’t Batman. Don’t ask me how to get the 18-35 demographic interested in Shazam or Cyborg, because I couldn’t tell you. But when it comes to making a good Batman movie, there’s a body of work to draw on, which makes it slightly confounding that none of the high muck-a-mucks at Warner Brothers have drawn on it.<\/p>\n

Well, hopefully at least one of those muck-a-mucks is having this post read aloud to them by an intern while they get a manicure or snort their afternoon cocaine. Let’s start with Batman himself.<\/p>\n

Ben Affleck is Fine<\/h3>\n

Ben Affleck is fine. In fact, when I ran down all of the live-action Batmans in my head, I was surprised to find that I think Affleck’s may be my favorite.<\/p>\n

If nothing else, they got the stubble right.<\/div>
If nothing else, they got the stubble right.<\/div><\/p>\n

That’s not much of a bar to clear, though. Christian Bale is the most prestigious dramatic actor to play the role, but to honest there’s not that much about his Batman that I found memorable or character-defining, with the possible exception of his two-packs-a-day-habit “Batman voice.” Val Kilmer and George Clooney I barely remember, and Michael Keaton was notable mostly for being an unexpected choice. I suppose Adam West was better, but that’s such an apples-and-oranges comparison it’s barely worth making.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More so than any of the others (West excluded), Affleck gives the impression that he has a specific conception of the character he’s going for. His is the grizzled, ruthless Batman, graying in both his hair and his morality, and I think he more or less hit what he was aiming for.<\/p>\n

Ever since Dawn of Justice<\/em> disappointed, he’s been rumored to be on his way out. The hot-off-the-griddle latest rumors have Jon Hamm replacing him.<\/a> Though he certainly has the look, I don’t see this as any kind of franchise-saving change and smacks more of guesswork.<\/p>\n

I’ve always thought that when you cast Batman, you’re not really casting Batman. Batman himself wears a mask and spends most of his time punching people and jumping off of buildings, meaning he could perhaps be better played by a stuntman than a dramatic actor. The character you’re really casting is Bruce Wayne, who’s only seen while either vulnerable or putting on some kind of performance. (My favorite Christian Bale moment from his films was in Batman Begins<\/em>, when he got the guests to clear out of Wayne manor by convincingly portraying a thoughtless, bratty twentysomething billionaire.)<\/p>\n

So really, Ben Affleck is fine. Jon Hamm would probably also be fine (Don Draper was halfway to being Bruce Wayne anyway). What matters more is the movie that’s made around them, which brings me to my second point.<\/p>\n

Give Batman His Own Damn Movie<\/h3>\n

Maybe they just decided to let the character lie fallow for a season after the Christopher Nolan movies, but to me sufficient time has passed for there to be a straight-up Batman movie again. These characters are resilient. The MCU hasn’t killed Spider-Man yet, even though they reboot the franchise every time there’s a new iPhone.<\/p>\n

Instead, Batfleck has played second (or even third or fourth) banana in three different movies now. You’d think he was some second-stringer instead of a star quarterback. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Batman is at his best in Gotham and arguably at his worst when having to share a setting with capital-S Superheroes like Superman or Wonder Woman. So maybe just for one movie you could lay off the whole “cinematic universe” thing and just make a standalone Batman movie. It might even be good.<\/p>\n

Confession: I didn't get around to watching Lego Batman until a couple weeks ago. It was good. Is there such a thing as the Lego Cinematic Universe? Marvel and DC could learn a thing or two.<\/div>
Confession: I didn't get around to watching Lego Batman until a couple weeks ago. It was good. Is there such a thing as the Lego Cinematic Universe? Marvel and DC could learn a thing or two.<\/div><\/p>\n

Keep it Simple<\/h3>\n

One of the first pieces of meta-knowledge I developed about superhero movies was not to cram too much into your runtime. Tim Burton’s Batman<\/em> just had Batman and the Joker. Then Batman Returns<\/em> had both the Penguin and<\/em> Catwoman, which threatened to overcrowd the movie but never quite did.<\/p>\n

Then Joel Schumacher showed up and things started to get out of hand. It says something that I can’t even remember at the moment which of those movies had Mr. Freeze in it, but I do know they introduced him, Robin, Batgirl, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, the Riddler, and even a comical attempt at Bane all within the space of (by my math) 247 minutes of screen time, and that’s counting two sets of opening and closing credits.<\/p>\n

Suicide Squad<\/em> suffered from a similar problem (though that was hardly the only problem with that movie). Not everyone seems to have realized that when you keep adding more and more characters to a movie, eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but generally, when it comes to Batman, low-concept beats high-concept pretty much every time.<\/p>\n

It doesn't bode well that I'm more interested in the hypothetical second show than I am in the actual first one.<\/div>
It doesn't bode well that I'm more interested in the hypothetical second show than I am in the actual first one.<\/div><\/p>\n

Pit Batman against Superman? Have a prequel show full of younger-and-sexier versions of the villains? Have a ten-minute Batman vignette in the middle of another movie? The Warner Brothers people seem determined to try everything except the thing that’s been proven to work time and again. It’s freaking Batman<\/em>, people. Most of the work has already been done for you!<\/p>\n

According to what I’ve seen online, there are two “untitled DC films” slated for release in 2020. Here’s my advice: have one of them be Batman, and keep it simple. I don’t want to see Batman in a zombie apocalypse, or Batman in a brief cameo in Aquaman<\/em> wearing a scuba-batsuit, or a dark comedy about Batman struggling with an Oxycontin addiction, or Batman versus a half-dozen villains in one single movie. If you absolutely have<\/em> to, I guess you could bring Robin in, but only if you know how to do it right.<\/p>\n

And so ends this particular series of complaints. Batman, you may have guessed by now, is important to me. I like my genre upmarket and with snooty literary pretensions, and that has become Batman’s brand, or at least one aspect of it. The rest of the comic book world I can more or less take or leave.<\/p>\n

Thanks to everyone who’s stuck with me this far – I’ll be away until the holidays are over, between seeing family and working on other things. Until I see you again, enjoy your holidays!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on my googling, it appears that Toby Emmerich is the closest thing the DC Cinematic Universe has to someone in charge. I assume he’s been hitting F5 on this page all day, eager for my expert advice. If not, one of you should hit up his home phone or something. My advice on how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-batman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}